Mojeek

Mojeek is a web search engine run by Mojeek Limited, a company registered in England with its office in the Sussex Innovation Centre in Brighton. It was founded by Marc Smith, who says he has been developing search technology since 2004. Unlike most alternatives, Mojeek crawls and ranks the web with its own software instead of reselling results from another provider.

The vendor says its index passed 9 billion pages in 2025 and that it has provided search without tracking for over 15 years. Besides the public search site at mojeek.com, the company sells a Search API for developers and AI applications, a Site Search API, embeddable search boxes, and Mojeek Ads. Its pitch is a second independent index for people and software that do not want to depend on the large US engines, with queries that are not tied to a profile.

• Own crawler and index. The vendor says Mojeek builds its index from the ground up with its own crawler, MojeekBot, which respects the Robots Exclusion Protocol. Pages that block the bot are not indexed. The About page puts the index at more than nine billion pages.
• No tracking of searches. Mojeek describes its service as search that does not follow users around. The About page lists cookieless preferences, introduced in 2022, so settings can be kept without an account or a tracking identifier.
• Search Choices and Focus. Search Choices let users adjust how results are produced, and Focus is a separate product for searching the part of the web a person wants. Both were added in 2022 according to the company timeline.
• Search Summary and semantic search. The company timeline records semantic search in 2024 and a Search Summary feature the same year. Summaries are layered on top of the independent index rather than supplied by another engine.
• Web Search API. Developers receive URL, page title and query-dependent snippets as JSON or XML. Parameters cover country and language boosting, site clustering, title and description length, SafeSearch and ranking tweaks, plus advanced search operators.
• Site Search API and search boxes. Site owners can embed search over their own pages with the Site Search API or drop in the Simple Search Boxes widgets. Both are listed as separate products from the web API.
• Image and news search. The public engine has Web, Images and News tabs. The timeline mentions Openverse as the image search provider, so image results are not all crawled by Mojeek itself.

• A privacy-minded individual. Someone who wants a daily search engine that keeps no profile can set Mojeek as the browser default. The vendor publishes browser and mobile guides for this. Results come from a smaller index, so rare queries may need a second engine.
• A startup building an AI assistant. A small team can call the Web Search API to feed an agent with fresh pages. The Startup plan allows caching for one hour, and the vendor says no sub-processors touch the queries, which simplifies a data processing agreement.
• A European public body or regulated firm. A buyer that must document where search queries go can use the API's stated European infrastructure and DPA. The Enterprise plan adds zero data retention and invoicing on request, with details agreed in a contact call.

For the public engine, open mojeek.com and use it directly, or add it as the default search in a browser using the guides under Help and Support. For the API, the vendor says you sign up for the Startup plan, which includes a free credit. A bank card is required to open the account, but no automatic payments are processed and you can cancel at any time.

The Quickstart page in the API docs shows recommended parameters and a sample request. After that you read the request parameter, scoring parameter and response format pages (JSON or XML) and set budget alerts in the account. Upgrading to the Business plan is needed if you want to store results.

Mojeek is a small English company that crawls the web itself and reports an index above nine billion pages. It is the clearest case here of an engine with no borrowed results, and its API is pay-as-you-go.

The price of that independence is size: a rarer or non-English query is more likely to return a thin page, which is an inference from its own page count.

In our search engines ranking Mojeek stands at #2 of 16: it follows Kagi and comes before Brave Search. Top-three spots are set aside for challengers, and Mojeek holds one of them; read it as a position, not a grade.

Mojeek is based in the United Kingdom; 6 of the 16 products here share its region, Europe.

Setup takes minutes because web search needs no account.

The page states no minimum commitment, no automatic payments and cancellation at any time, so leaving is clean.

Charging model: No user price shown; paid API at published pay-as-you-go rates.

The public search site is free to use. The Search API is pay as you go with no minimum commitment, as printed on the vendor's pricing page. Startup costs £2 per 1,000 requests, allows 5 queries per second and 100,000 queries per day, and returns up to 10 results per request. Business costs £3 per 1,000 requests, allows 10 queries per second and 400,000 per day, and returns up to 40 results. Enterprise is custom, with no limit and up to 100 results. Prices exclude VAT and similar taxes. Payments are processed by Stripe Payments Europe Ltd. Pricing for Mojeek Ads and the Site Search API is not shown on the pages reviewed.

Read from mojeek.com when Best Search Engines in 2026 was last reviewed (7 November 2026).

The vendor says its API uses European infrastructure owned and operated by Mojeek, with no sub-processors, and that Mojeek is the processor while the customer is the controller. Standard retention is 90 days, with zero data retention on request.

The data centre is described as running on renewable energy. Independent security certifications such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2 are not stated on the pages reviewed. Business and Enterprise plans have storage rights that permit indefinite retention of results.

Integrations the vendor names (7):

• Web Search API (JSON and XML)
• Site Search API
• Simple Search Boxes
• Mojeek Ads
• Browser search guides
• Mobile search guides
• Stripe Payments (billing)

Also in our records:

• The Startup API plan is capped at five queries a second and 100,000 a day
• Ecosystem tags in our records: Search API.

4 products in this guide come closest to Mojeek on tags, pricing and region.

• Brave Search (#3 of 16): Not for: buyers who need a stated Premium price before committing. Independent index from the Brave browser company, with a paid API.
• Qwant (#5 of 16): Paris-based engine with its own crawler, partner results and optional AI summaries. Suits: French and European users who want a Paris-based engine with optional AI answers. (France)
• Ecosia (#6 of 16): Climate-funded engine using Bing, Google and a new European index. Watch out: results mix three providers, so which one serves you varies by country, device and consent.
• DuckDuckGo (#7 of 16): Ad-funded private search relying largely on Bing for its links. Watch out: traditional links and images are largely sourced from Bing.

Read from the vendor’s own pages on 5 November 2026.

• mojeek.com/about: company, founder, index size, history, no-tracking claim, address
• mojeek.com/services/search/web-search-api: API plans, prices, limits, retention, sub-processors, FAQ

Four tests decide a position: how soon the product is useful, what the bill really becomes, how data leaves and who it suits. The result for Mojeek: #2, out of 16 ranked. The editorial process sets out how facts are gathered and how commercial links are handled.